Continued from Part 2 of Florence’s story.
For anyone who has spent decades as an expat trailing spouse, seeing your children leave the nest and your husband become a stay-at-home retiree is a major change of life, dynamics and pace.
We had often talked about this phase of our lives, although it has come earlier than for most of our peers. My husband, Alex, now in his mid-50s, has been building up our finances for many years so that he could spend more time with our children and aging parents, and fulfill his dreams — including a plan to sail around the world! (The catamaran is being built in Poland and, if all goes well, we’ll be starting this new adventure in May. )
During his first few months of retirement, I observed that my husband seemed to be experiencing a bit of what we trailing spouses go through at the start of our expatriation — the adjustment to everyday life, the lack of social contact — except that the timing was his choice. As for me, however, I’m just beginning to reap the benefits of the projects I’ve been developing in the shadow of his career.
